About

OUR MISSION

CUSP is a university-wide center whose research and education programs are focused on urban informatics. Using NYC as its lab, and building from its home in the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, it integrates and applies NYU strengths in the natural, data, and social sciences to understand and improve cities throughout the world. CUSP offers a one-year MS degree in Applied Urban Science & Informatics.

WHAT WE DO

The Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) unites two extraordinarily profound developments in human history in order to improve the lives of citizens around the globe:

GLOBAL URBANIZATION

For the first time in history, more than half the world’s population lives in urban areas.

THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

90% of the world’s data has been created in the last two years alone.

HOW WE DO IT

CUSP instruments New York City and uses existing data from a network of agencies to transform the city into a living laboratory and classroom. It uses the vast amount of data it collects to help cities around the world become more productive, more livable, more equitable, and more resilient.

As CUSP develops new expertise through research and new experts through its educational programs, CUSP is becoming the world’s leading authority in the emerging field of urban informatics — the collection, integration, and analysis of data to understand and improve urban systems and quality of life.

OUR HISTORY

In 2012, New York City challenged top institutions around the world to design an applied science campus that would make the city a world capital of science and technology, as well as dramatically grow its economy. New York University and NYU-Poly, along with a consortium of world-class universities and some of the foremost international tech companies, proposed CUSP, a new kind of academic center that functions in collaboration with the city itself.

The proposal was accepted, and on April 23, 2012 Mayor Bloomberg announced the launch of CUSP.

CUSP simultaneously responds to two important challenges:

The very specific challenge the Bloomberg Administration issued under the banner of Applied Sciences NYC.

For the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas; in just a few more decades, 70 percent will live in cities. Enabling those cities to deliver services effectively, efficiently, and sustainably while keeping their citizens safe, healthy, prosperous, and well‑informed will be among the most important undertakings of this century.

CUSP tackles these urban challenges with New York City as its laboratory and classroom. CUSP sets the research agenda for “the science of cities.” CUSP educates the next generation of engineers in how to apply that research, bring innovative ideas to a world market, and create a new, fast-growing, and indispensable industry — and the many jobs that come along with it.

CUSP is a unique public-private research center that uses New York City as its laboratory and classroom to help cities around the world become more productive, livable, equitable, and resilient. CUSP observes, analyzes, and models cities to optimize outcomes, prototype new solutions, formalize new tools and processes, and develop new expertise/experts. These activities will make CUSP the world’s leading authority in the emerging field of “Urban Informatics.”